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Fernando Torres the £50m misfit is surely on borrowed time

Tony Cascarino

November 24 2011, 12:01am, The Times

Torres is down the pecking order of Villas-Boas at ChelseaDAVID MOIR/REUTERS

What must a £50 million striker think as he sits on the bench and watches his team-mates struggle against ordinary opposition and fall to a defeat that opens up the possibility of a Champions League exit at the group stage?

It must be becoming clearer by the day to Fernando Torres that he is on borrowed time at Stamford Bridge. If it was not obvious before, the 2-1 defeat by Bayer Leverkusen underlined it.

The writing was on the wall when the Spain forward was left out of the Liverpool game. If ever there was a match you would expect to play in, it is against former team-mates whose weaknesses you know intimately.